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Tea — midwife and nurse to capitalism

Tea is and has for long been so ubiquitous a part of daily life, in the UK particularly, that its true significance remains almost invisible. Yet, as this article shows, it has nonetheless been of unprecedented importance in the historical, social and economic development of Britain, from the eighteenth century onwards, and not only as a major plantation-grown commodity of colonial trade. Indeed, its knock-on health benefits, as a counter to alcoholic alternatives and insanitary water supplies, were of primary importance to the growth and maintenance of the early industrial working class — and hence to the very development of Britain's early industrial and colonial supremacy.

Key Words: colonial commodities • East India company • industrial revolution • urban poor

Race & Class, Vol. 51, No. 1, 69-83 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0306396809106164


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